Levin’s Confession

 

“To live not for one’s needs but for God!”

“How does he remember God?  How does he live for the soul?”  Levin almost cried out.

“You know how: rightly, in a godly way.  You know, people differ!  Take you, for instance, you won’t injure anyone either…”

Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy

While the novel is named for Anna, Constantine Levin is as central to the story as she and the novel ends with Levin’s confession of faith – a re-discovery (as he abandoned the Orthodox faith of his childhood) that was prompted by a discussion with a peasant.

The words the peasant had spoken had produced in his soul the effect of an electric spark…

This spark brought together many disjointed ideas he had carried through his life. 

“Can I possibly have found the solution of everything?  Have my sufferings really come to an end? … I have discovered nothing.  I have only perceived what it is that I know.”

This realization showed him one thing: he had lived well (that is to say, rightly, in a godly way), but he thought badly. 

“Whence comes the joyful knowledge I have in common with the peasant, and which alone gives me peace of mind?  Where did I get it?”

He spent much time examining many worldly philosophies and ideas in search of the truth that was offered to him from the time of being an infant, as if drinking the truth in with his mother’s milk.

“Can this really be faith? … My God, I thank thee!”

Sobbing, tears filling his eyes.

Yet this joy, this realization would run right up against his old habits.  Yes, he regularly treated others kindly; he could also be quite short with them – including his wife.  Was this joy just a momentary thing, something that would pass soon enough?

He reconciled with his shortcomings, while holding on to this newly embraced faith.  The entire book closes with his confession:

“I shall still get angry with Ivan the coachman in the same way, shall dispute in the same way, shall inopportunely express my thoughts; there will still be a wall between my soul’s holy of holies and other people; even my wife I shall still blame for my own fears and shall repent of it.  My reason will still not understand why I pray, but I shall still pray, and my life, my whole life, independently of anything that may happen to me, is every moment of it no longer meaningless as it was before, but has an unquestionable meaning of goodness with which I have the power to invest it.”

Watching a Marriage Destroy a Career

Reflections on Paul VanderKlay’s video, “Has Jordan Peterson become Fat Thor?”  But, really, it is on more than this.  For example, Peterson’s discussion with Joe Rogan about cancelling certain guests, his co-authoring a paper attacking those who proclaim “Christ is King,” things like that (this last one has opened a bit of a rift with Peterson for Jonathan Pageau). 

In other words, Peterson is just another free speech advocate who no longer supports free speech – a move that basically defines the Daily Wire, for whom Peterson happens to work.

Apparently, in Peterson’s recent appearance on Joe Rogan, Rogan began by asking something about picturing a Hollywood man in a marriage to a difficult woman, and how through this the marriage destroyed the man’s career and, eventually, the man.  I say “apparently,” because I almost never watch anymore anything involving Peterson – this was per VanderKLay.

Now, when I heard of this open, I thought this is why Rogan makes a lot of money; it was a brilliant open for a discussion with Peterson – not because Peterson is a psychologist, but because Peterson is the man about whom Rogan is asking.

Peterson changed the subject – of course he would.  In no way does he want to deal with this subject.  He is the Hollywood man married to the Daily Wire, and this marriage is destroying Peterson’s career and will soon enough destroy Peterson.  What is tearing him apart is the same thing that is tearing the (political / republican / Trumpian) right apart. 

You lose all credibility when you are one who has been advocating for free speech and against cancel culture and then, on a dime, call for cancel culture and come out against free speech.  Peterson isn’t the only one.  We saw this with Douglas Murray on Rogan with Dave Smith, and we see it with other high-status individuals on the political right.

The only way to salvage this for Peterson – his career and maybe his sanity – is to leave the Daily Wire and not worry about being cancelled or losing status. 

Others have done it successfully.

Jesus Christ: Social Influencer?

 Paul VanderKlay released a video, ARC2025 as Salvation of Western-Civ or the Rise of Anti-Christ

ARC is the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship.  It is fronted by Jordan Peterson, and is in some way supposed to be an alternative to the World Economic Forum.  From their website:

The Alliance for Responsible Citizenship is an international movement with a vision for a better world where empowered citizens take responsibility and work together to bring flourishing and prosperity to their families, communities, and nations.

Antichrist is…

1 John 2: 18 Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. … 22 Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.

The Greek word pseudokhristos is used here, by Jesus:

Matthew 24: 24 For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.

An antichrist is one who denies Jesus is the Messiah, and, in His stead or without submission to Him, is a savior or liberator.  In my view, and as the apostle John has written, there have been and are many of these.  Further, it seems to me that the antichrist is not limited to a person; an idea can be viewed as a savior or liberator.

ARC is struggling with this: there is a favorable bent toward Christianity in this organization and in the discussions; witness Jordan Peterson and many other atheists who find utility value in Christianity toward a stable and prosperous society.

At the same time, ARC is not overtly Christian – finding utility value in Christianity is not the same thing as humbly submitting to Christ.  Instead, if there is an overriding theme of ARC, it is that we must return to classical liberal values – recognizing that these values function best if a culture is nominally Christian.

Classical liberal values, if not place under submission to Christ, present an antichrist: a false savior.

In VanderKlay’s video, he referenced something written by Jonathan Pageau, struggling with just this question: ARC and antichrist.  I commented at VanderKlay’s site:

Pageau: ARC...antichrist?

Jonathan is right to consider this.  Healing will come with Jesus Christ at the center, not with Jesus Christ as a social influencer.

No doubt Jonathan will talk to his priest about this.  The fact that he publicly raised this concern suggests that we may soon see Jonathan changing how he participates in the Jordan Peterson corner of the internet.

Bible Believing Church

 

I used to cringe at this statement.  Let me explain, before coming to why I write “used to.”  It is a statement used by some Protestant churches, and, to my knowledge, only Protestant churches.  I would cringe because I took it as a slight against those churches that also embrace tradition (as if even the lowest of low protestant churches don’t hold to some tradition).  In other words: we believe the Bible, and only the Bible.  Sola Scriptura.

I didn’t like it.  Even the churches that embrace tradition (Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, etc.) are “Bible believing.”  They are just Bible believing plus some other things.  But this was my frame of reference: the self-proclaimed Bible believing churches aren’t like those Catholic and Orthodox churches.

Now, what I am about to write – and that this is revelatory to me – is truly…stunning.  It turns out that a better way to understand the phrase – whether it is meant by all who use it or not – is not in the frame of contrasting against “Bible believing plus.”  Instead, to contrast against “Bible believing minus.”

The big “minus,” which is the obvious point for my being stunned, is on all points regarding embracing every woke concept.  We believe the Bible except what is says about a man and a woman, about marriage, about sexual relations, etc.  We believe the Bible except for the idea that God was purposeful in Creation.

Now, that many Protestant churches believe in the Bible “minus” has been obvious to me.  Yet I didn’t see this phrase “Bible believing” as an indictment of these.

Why now?  Why am I writing this now?  Here again, I have known for quite some time that not everyone who uses the words “Christian” or “God” or “sin” or “saved” mean the same thing as others or mean what it is the Bible teaches on these subjects.  For much of my life, I was just such a “Christian” – a Christian as long as Bible believing minus was acceptable.

This is what hit me like a two-by-four across the skull: being faced with this reality personally, intimately, and directly by people who use such words yet mean something else entirely…well, now I understand what “Bible believing” means in its best sense.

It is in contrast to such Christians: The Bible “minus” Christians.  Subtracting what God says from the definition of “Christian,” “God,” “sin,” and “saved.” 

It is a god, and a Christianity made in their own image.

Conclusion

Matthew 7: 21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven

Lloyd-Jones described these words as “…in many ways the most solemn and solemnizing words ever uttered in this world… How often, I wonder, have we considered them, or heard a sermon on them?”

As I noted at the time: The warning is one of avoiding self-deception and self-delusion.  It isn’t a warning simply of and for our teachers, but for ourselves.  It is emphasizing that nothing avails but true righteousness and true holiness.

This true righteousness and true holiness doesn’t come by picking and choosing what we want from the Bible.  God doesn’t change; His commandments do not change either. 

Treating the Symptom, not the Cause

 

What a brouhaha about H-1B visas within the MAGA movement.  I think prompted by a post from Vivek:

The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over “native” Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture. Tough questions demand tough answers & if we’re really serious about fixing the problem, we have to confront the TRUTH:

Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG.

There is more to it, but you get the idea.

Now, the culture he and Elon and the tech wizards that have joined MAGA (do they really care about what working class Americans care about) is the culture of STEM, and I agree fully that this is an important culture for an industrialized, division of labor economy.

Of course, it isn’t the most important cultural element.  I have written about this probably more than any other subject at this blog.  Call it a Christian culture that lives by the natural law ethic and legislates based on natural rights.  With such a culture as the foundation, excellence in STEM and every other field is secured.

I don’t intend to turn this post into a complete review of natural law and natural rights.  Suffice it to say, a natural law ethic places happiness as the highest value – happiness, or beatitudo, better understood as fulfillment through other-regarding action.  Call it love, and see the Golden Rule for a shorthand description of this: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Natural rights are different: these are the rights an individual has based on his humanity: a right to his life and to his justly acquired property.  Laws should be based on this and only this, what is described as the non-aggression principle.  I have in the past greatly simplified what this means: don’t hit first, don’t take my stuff.  Do either, and there ought to be a law against it.

So, that’s enough about the culture that actually matters if Vivek and Elon and these other wizards of Silicon Valley want capable employees.  In other words, Vivek is right – the issue isn’t an innate IQ deficit.  Yes, east Asians present a higher IQ, but it isn’t as if Americans of Western European descent lack in any measure of intelligence.

Vivek is dealing with a symptom: attributing the lack of Americans capable in STEM due to some cultural deficit in Americans.  But this isn’t the cause.  The underlying cause is the disdain for this Christian culture of natural law ethics and natural rights law.

This disdain has brought us to celebrate the idea that 2 + 2 = 4 is a social construct, that race or gender are more important factors in higher education than academic capability, that race or gender are more important factors than performance in hiring practices.

This disdain has brought us to develop entire university degrees in the most useless and inane fields, leading many who would be far better off learning a trade to instead fall into $100,000 or more of four-year debt only to work at Starbucks.

This disdain has even brought the STEM fields to ignore reality and focus on trivialities or worse.

Conclusion

Vivek and Elon want to work on the symptom, but this won’t fix any problem that matters to Americans.  Work on the cause (don’t even insert the idea of natural law into it): make education meaningful again.  This can be done simply enough: turn off the US government spigot that funds higher education stupidity in curriculums and today’s version of diversity in admissions.